Mother Nature is set to offer Ireland some long-overdue respite from rain, sleet and icy temperatures.

The next five days will see a marked improvement in temperatures together with spells of bright sunshine as spring finally arrives.

Saturday morning's mist and fog will clear to give way to mainly sunshine initially - but it's not time to put away the raincoats just yet.

Early showers in Munster will spread to other parts of the country by this afternoon, and some of them will be heavy and thundery.

Overnight, however, while the south of Ireland will still be subject to scattered showers, it will be largely dry and clear elsewhere.

Sunday morning is expected to start off with mist and fog, quite dense around dawn and lingering around the east coast.

Again, while temperature highs of 11 to 14 degrees are forecast, rain will spread from Munster to around the island throughout the day.

Stranded

While not beach conditions just yet, the weather over the next few days will be a relief from the extreme rainfall and wind that left 30 DART passengers stranded for three hours at Bray Head on Thursday night when overhead wires were torn down and damaged.

The incident occurred between Bray and Greystones and the passengers were stranded for three hours because Iarnrod Éireann then had to use a diesel-powered train to access the site and help remove the passengers.

The long, hard winter also brought yet more misery for Irish farmers as thousands of acres of farmland were left under flood waters as rivers across Munster broke their banks following torrential downpours on Thursday and Friday.

Cork, Kerry and Waterford received almost 50mm of rainfall in just 24 hours as a major Atlantic weather front moved across the south.

The rainfall, which prompted a Status Yellow warning from Met Éireann, resulted in dangerous driving conditions with widespread flooding across secondary roads.

In parts of north Cork, the downpours were so heavy that roads were left impassable by spot flooding.

On Thursday night, western counties including Galway and Clare were battered by winds which gusted close to 100km/h.

A total of eight counties were hit by the torrential downpours - though Kilkenny, Wexford, Clare, Limerick and Tipperary sustained around 25mm-30mm of rainfall, far less than the worst hit Cork, Kerry and Waterford.

Gardaí and the Road Safety Authority (RSA) warned people not to attempt to drive into flood waters of unknown depth.